Edda van Heefmstra Ruston

Welcome, everyone! :cheers: By the by, if you see people talking about "blaming Pod", don't worry! It's not directed at you. We have another user who goes by "Pod" too, and it's all his fault. Everything. Always.

FWIW, I heard a lot more of Aiden Gillen's natural accent in this episode, particularly when he was so furious with Tyrion. He's normally very good at accent consistency, so I'm not sure what was up. But then, compared to the otherwise-excellent Peter Dinklage, you'd practically think Gillen was a born Englishman. :lol:

Tyene Sand would like to have a word with you.* Well, probably more than that, depending on how one defines white and how the younger girls appear. Oberyn and Ellaria can both be read as pretty darn white, so I'm guessing that their children might, too. * It's possible for none of the ten (Oberyn, Ellaria, 8 Sand Snakes) to actually be white, but it's not out of the realms of possibility, either.

In the TV episode they were burning the wights in Castle Black, which is south of the wall. It's true, though, that the previous shots did not appear as obviously stepped: See this shot from Lord Snow, which shows the elevator pretty much in one straight line up the face of the wall. OTOH, the modelled image from the opening credits exaggerates the levels and offsets.

All the comments about the slurping make me wonder if people missed those during Tyrion's scene in Ep1. (They weren't from him drinking, or they would have stopped when he did.) Or if it's somehow different if the slurper is male. Other than that, this was by far my favourite of those we've seen up to this point. I think cutting out a couple of locations/storylines really helped bring everything together. And yes, I mean that even with the additional material providing enough time that we probably could have jumped back over to one of those storylines - I think the new scenes didn't disrupt anything as much as a 'POV' shift would have. The only things I didn't like were the things I mentioned in the ep-specific discussion thread (the first, anyway). First, I don't think LF would have been that open about taunting Renly at the joust -- Loras and Renly's relationship was an open 'secret'. That means that 1) it's unlikely that most people who mattered at the tourney wouldn't already have been aware and 2) LF wouldn't have been bandying about something so widely-known. It just doesn't seem his style, anyway, at least not one-on-one. Secondly, something about the Loras-Renly interaction and personalities seems off to me. I always saw Renly as more gregarious and charming, and less full of self-doubt. Okay, I can buy that he's never thought of being king, and Loras is the more ambitious of the two. I just don't see either TV interpretation as the type to inspire the admiration they seem to get in GoT-the-book. I also don't see this Renly as being Loras's sun, but maybe that will become more obvious as we get more interaction between the two on-screen.

Hi, Lady Midnight, and welcome! I'm sure you've picked this up already from seeing other posts here, but be very, very careful if you don't want to be spoiled on what's going to happen. The only places that are guaranteed to be spoiler-free will be the TV forums, and even there it'll only be threads marked [No Spoilers]. Anywhere else is liable to have spoilers, even stuff that isn't explicitly marked, or is a general topic.

Kat should work for HBO - that's actually very similar to what they were handing out at the screening last night. Your map and backstory notes are better, though. :P

Hi, all! Echo - two? Have you read A Storm for Swords and A Feast for Crows? Or do you really mean just the first two right now, and you'll rehash the others when Dance is closer to release?

Just to express my own preference, I'd love to be able to get all of the Dothraki news in one place. (Ideally from somewhere that has an RSS feed, so that I can add it to my RSS reader.) Expanding publicity by using Facebook, a blog, a Livejournal, this forum, it's all fantastic, but please make sure that people can get information even if they follow you in only one location. Discussion's different; different people are in each space, so I wouldn't expect that to be duplicated everywhere. I've no idea what sort of arrangement you have or could get with HBO/the actors -- for getting people interested in Dothraki, maybe get interviews with Jason Momoa and put them up as a "prize" for going through a very basic quiz on Dothraki words and customs. That could get people familiar with some of the fundamentals before the show starts, if they want. As for what I'd love to read, I'd like to know not just the translations for words and phrases, but more about the creation process. How did you work with the material George had in the book? Did you talk to him to get more information about Dothraki culture, which would inform the language, such as having no word for "follow"? Speaking of, what word or phrase would a khal use to tell his bloodriders to go where he leads? What real-life counterparts did you use as inspiration, and for what aspects? How did you determine the phonology and morphology of the language? Will there be any written Dothraki in the series (aside: is there any in the book, either direct or as transcriptions from non-Dothraki?), so we can see what sort of writing system the Dothraki have devised, if any? [i'm aware that most academics state that most nomadic peoples did not leave written records, but 1) that doesn't mean none of this subset nomadic peoples ever had written records and 2) there are also the nomadic peoples that definitely did have written records.] Most of those would be less publicity- and/or HBO-related, of course, but it could be something to address as Dothraki makes more people aware of conlangs and the conlang process.

:blushing: I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Ran is awesome, but the poll is not. When I try to submit, I get a board message saying I have to answer every question in the poll. As far as I know, I have, but it keeps saying the same thing. For comment on the feature, I would like to see (if possible) separate positive and negative ratings. I think that would give a more detailed picture of reactions to the post, instead of just the aggregate.

For someone complaining about spelling/typing and writing, mystar is hoist with his own petard. Or did he really make Sprite come out his secretary's nose, among other statements? And, well, if TG had open heart surgery I wouldn't think it was because his heart was like a 16-year old's. But then maybe it was only a very special 16-year old. Even if mystar had said TG had some kind of pulmonary surgery, I could almost buy it; the chest might still be open and the heart might still be seen. However, if TG's having arteries bypassed/repaired, that on its own contradicts the idea that he has a young, healthy heart.

Yeah, that first part was meant to be in support of your notion, hence the later 'otoh'. The second... well, nobody's perfect. Just imagine if Setanta'd had an older brother Gearóid - he might not have been so handsome after all! :P

CB - you're forgetting the most important part. It's only after Setanta kills Culann's hound and takes its place as watchdog that he earns the name Cuchulainn. Okay, Sandor didn't kill Lady directly, or drive Nymeria away, but I'd argue that his actions were a large part of why the wolves and girls were separated. He's had his turn guarding each of Sansa and Arya, too, though admittedly it was after he got the nickname. OTOH, Setanta was known for being exceptionally handsome, which is a charge nobody can lay at Sandor's door. ;)

FWIW, Dorcas is also a real (if uncommon) name - I'd personally want to see more evidence tying GRRM's Dorcas to a particular other Dorcas. FWIW, Dorcas is also a real (if uncommon) name - I'd personally want to see more evidence tying GRRM's Dorcas to a particular other Dorcas.